What would you do if your first contract of killing someone goes awry and you become the prey instead of the hunter? The Contractor focuses on the journey of an involuntarily discharged U.S. Special Forces soldier who has to risk everything to earn and support his family.
James, a former U.S. Special Forces sergeant’s life goes into a frenzy after he agrees to a contract with a private underground force. Instead of completing his assignment, James becomes the prey and finds himself on the run after he gets caught in a dangerous conspiracy.
Would James be able to make it out alive, or would he end up losing the battle of his life? Directed by Tarik Saleh, the series stars Chris Pine playing the role of James Harper, a former soldier and the film’s lead protagonist, Ben Foster playing the role of Mike Hawkins, GillianJacobs laying the role of Brianne Harper, Eddie Marsan playing the role of Virgil in the lead cast.
The recurring cast of the movie consists of J.D. Pardo playing the of Eric, Kiefer Sutherland playing the role of Rusty Jennings, Florian Munteanu playing the role of Kauffman, Nina Hoss playing the role of Katia, Amira Casar playing the role of Sylvie and Fares Fares playing the role of Salim.
Broadcasted thematically on April 1, 2023, The Contractor became a massive success with Chris Pine’s impactful performance. Written by J.P Davis and Produced by Basil Iwanyk, the film has a run time of 103 minutes with a massive box office collection of $2.1 M. Viewers felt the film was stuck between a standard action thriller and a message movie.
The Contractor Premise
The Contractor begins with James Harper, a Sergeant First Class, being involuntarily discharged from the army due to his using illegal steroids for the treatment of his debilitating knee injury.
James contacts Mike, a friend working for a private military company, after facing financial troubles after Rusty Jennings, a fellow veteran, instructs him to get help from Mike. Even though Harper receives several similar offers but he isn’t able to take them up as he feels a sense towards his country.
Mike informs James about Rusty running secret operations for Defense Department. After witnessing Mike’s luxurious house, James meets Rusty and signs a contract with him for an operation in Germany.
Rusty provides Harper $50,000 in good faith and as a sign of signing the contract. This helps James to clear his debts while James continues his tour, surveilling Salim, a Middle Eastern scientist. After analyzing the situation, Rusty informs James and the team about Salim working on developing a bioagent for AI-Qaeda.
Rusty orders James and his team to dispose of Salim after raiding his lab and retrieving his research data. The team is successful in accessing and acquiring the data from the lab. Initially, James protests against Mike’s instruction to end Salim’s life as he feels that Salim is just a scientist working on a cure.
But in the end, James goes through with the orders and sets the lab on fire before departing from the lab. Harper rescues Mike, and the two hide in a storm drain after a brutal confrontation with police ending with everyone on the team getting killed.
After Mike realizes he might die, he begs James to get the data to Rusty and take care of his family. James saves Mike’s life after providing him with blood and recuperates. Mike decides to return to Rusty with the data, but James’ knees give up on him, and he needs to rest.
This leads to Mike proceeding alone after informing James that he will be picked up from a location. After James is well rested, he returns to the hotel and finds fresh clothes. James fails to discover Mike and Rusty, so he tries to contact Rusty with the help of a burner phone.
By the way Rusty talked about it, James smells foul play and doesn’t get in the car Rusty sent. After James delays entering the car, he gets attacked by a hit team, but James manages to end the life of each member of the hit team. It later gets revealed that the hit men worked for Rusty, and before dying, one of them gives a key to a safe house to James.
Following his interaction, James threatens Sylvie into giving him her husband’s computer files. After receiving the iPad with computer files from Sylvie, James starts his journey toward the safe house.
The midway, James encounters Virgil, who tranquilizes him. James wakes up disoriented in the safe house, where he plays a video on Salim’s iPad, with him explaining that he was working on a successful vaccine for H5N1.
While Virgil and James are having dinner, another hit team of Rusty arrives and kills Virgil, with James barely escaping. Mike and James reunite and sets a revenge plan after they realize Rusty lied to them for his gain. The film ends with James returning to his family after killing Rusty.
The Contractor- Filming Locations
The filming of The Contractor began in October of 2019, with Europe as the prime location, and the filming wrapped up by the end of 2019.
1. Romania
Located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Romania is a beautiful country used by the crew of The Contractor for the filming of some of the vital scenes in the film.
Bucharest, the capital of Romania in Pod Grozavesti, was used for the filming of the scene where James gets attacked. Some parts of the film were also filmed in the coastal city of Constanta. Snagov, a commune of five villages, was also used for the filming of some of the best scenes.
2. Germany
Know for the landscapes and forest, a Western European country, Germany, was used by the crew of The Contractor for the filming of some parts of it.
Berlin-Schoneberg in Germany was used for the filming of the scene with the metro crossing bridge. Berlin-Mitte in Alexanderplatz was used for filming the part of the film with the chase scene after the metro station scene.
3. California, U.S.
Located in the Western side of the United States, the amazing state of California was used by the crew of The Contractor for filming some parts of the movie.
Los Angeles in California was used for filming some of the prime parts of the film. Joe Auto Park in Los Angeles was used for the filming of the scene with Harper meeting Mike after he returns to the U.S.
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